What did you really do to your car today? V3.1

[Kawabuchi]

not today, but a few days ago I replaced the a-pillar trim with the sti version. same thing, just gray. looks soooooo much better. just need to replace the rest of hte plastics and redo the headliner/sunroof. going to be a (not so) fun summer project

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[Patrick Olsen]

- Rolled 240,000 miles on the Brighton beater yesterday.

- Slowly continuing the harness reinstallation on the Legacy. Got the wiring to the DCCD 6MT routed through one of the new grommets (using an iWire wiring adapter to clean up the install of the 6MT in a car that didn't originally come with one). I'm not really sure I'm a fan of their adapter; seems like it's kind of an adapter to an adapter, but whatever.

The grommet that I intended to use was old and dried out, but it's a 1" (25mm?) hole in the firewall, so I bought a pack of new grommets on Amazon. I de-pinned the iWire adapter harness so I could pass the wiring through the grommet, then reinstalled the connector.



With the adapter harness plugged in:


(The 6 wires go to the DCCD and the neutral and reverse switches.)

From inside the car:


6 wires spliced, wrapped up, and good to go:

[Patrick Olsen]

- Somehow I popped the radiator cap off the beater Impreza this weekend. Was driving on Fort Myer and smelled coolant. Hmmm, is that me, or the car(s) I'm following? Got to the Commissary parking lot, parked it and took a look. Even before popping the hood I saw a couple rivulets of coolant running down the front bumper. Hmmm... Popped the hood and there was coolant splattered all over the passenger side of the engine bay, but no obvious point of origin.

I went into the Commissary and bought a few gallons of water, then headed back out to try to figure out where the leak was. When I went to remove the radiator cap, it lifted right off - I didn't have to twist it! The last time I had checked the coolant level was a couple weeks ago, and the car had been driven multiple times since then. If I had failed to secure the radiator cap a couple weeks ago, why did it not blow coolant all over the place during one of those previous drives? The only thing I can figure is that I didn't quite twist the cap on all the way, so it was able to gradually loosen itself over the course of the previous drives, and finally loosened enough to release pressure this weekend.

I refilled the radiator, reinstalled the cap (making very sure that I twisted it fully into the locked position), and didn't have any issues driving the car home. Once I was home, I replaced the cap with the one from the non-running Legacy in the garage, and ordered a new one from Rock Auto.

- Rolled 241,000 miles on the beater as I was leaving my neighborhood this morning.

[PriNT2357]

After a long weekend of hauling the car cross country, I now have the ability to tear open the engine and find out how bad things are. Last time I tried to drive it, the car wouldn't go into gear and in the process of diagnosing the problem, a larger one came up. Turns out that having a timing cover bolt bouncing around in the timing cover leads to the belt jumping timing.
Started to pull the motor since timing jumped about 90 degrees on the passenger intake cam. This will be my first engine pull, so here's to hoping I don't bleed too much over the car.

[Kawabuchi]

Put the two trim pieces around the rear seat belts in cause they finally arrived. Just waiting for two more oh-**** handles and some time to figure out how to wrap/paint the shoulder harness and my interior renovation is complete.

Planning on an oil change this weekend, followed by a good wash/wax. Even pulling the wheels off to clean the well out! Probably going to break out the polisher too- the front bumper feels like 80grit sandpaper :/

[Rangerarnold]

Today I replaced fuel filter and air filter. Also cleaned up the MAF. ON my 94 legacy.

[ohitstarik]

2003 WRX, changed out the valve cover seals. Pretty easy job honestly. Making wastegate pressure too, i'm going to change the solenoid for that and hope it fixes it

[BuddyDFA]

look into the empty engine bay. also order more parts for an engine rebuild.

[Kawabuchi]

Finally got around to installing the hella horns and a GS license plate relocator. Next up is the billetworkz plate delete once I can figure out how to fill in the engraving with paint or vinyl (want to change the color a bit).

[Absoluteyeti]

Started my partout list for the 97 obs donor. Not thrilling work but it's better than tripping over car doors everywhere.

[Lt. Dan]

Installed new headlight assemblies on the Baja. It was going to require new bulbs and wiring as well, so as per someone in the Baja facebook group, I picked up some 9003 LED bulbs! Well... cut and solder on new connectors, went to put in the bulbs... Yup- it actually takes 9007's... Now I wait for more parts...

[Patrick Olsen]

Turned the beater Brighton into a race car!

YouTube (Short URL)

YouTube (Short URL)

This is as a result of the kludged together extended mid-pipe (installed back in January 2017) finally rusting through.

Before:


After:

[Patrick Olsen]

Hit up the Mt Airy and Jessup Crazy Rays locations and grabbed some parts.

- Got a complete speedo cable assembly for my '96 Brighton, which has a bouncy cable. (Might just need to be lubed, but figured it wouldn't hurt to have a spare, since they're not available from Subaru anymore.)

- Picked up both rear door sills for my still-not-any-closer-to-running '97 2.5GT. Over the years the flat pegs that clip into the rocker sill have all broken off on the driver side one, and the passenger side one has one or two of the three pegs broken off, so I needed some "new" ones that would clip in properly. Had to try 3 different Legacys/Outbacks to get 2 intact ones.

- Scored the complete multi-function switch from a Legacy sedan so I can have variable intermittent wipers in the beater Brighton. Another small bit of "luxury".

[Patrick Olsen]

Fixed the exhaust on the Impreza. Well, "fixed" - I just re-did the same thing I had done before, so it's still not welded together properly. Also replaced the gasket between the mid-pipe and axle-back, as it was toast.







I was pleasantly surprised to find that the mid-pipe itself was still nice and solid - some surface rust, but nothing extreme. It was just the short extension piece in there that had rotted out completely. So I put some high temp VHT engine paint on the new extension piece in the hopes it'll last a little longer this time. Heck, maybe at some point it'll all get welded together!

[Patrick Olsen]

Replaced the battery in the '96 Brighton this morning. Bought a replacement a few days ago, because I could tell the existing battery was getting weak on the cold(ish) mornings we'd had so far.

Of course, just because I had bought the battery didn't mean I actually took the 10min to install it! Nooooo, much better to sit it in footwell of the back seat to get to it later. Later, like, this morning, when I went to start the car to go to work and it was dead as can be.

[Harry]

Replaced burned out driver`s headlight with another HIR bulb and polished both lens again.

Not today but last weekend, I drove the STI to Michigan and towed a 6x10 trailer full of son's stuff back to Maryland. Towed no problem, thanks to great tie down job by one of his mountain climbing buds.

[Patrick Olsen]

- Spent the past couple days chasing a no-start condition on the Impreza. First time it didn't start was a cold morning, so I figured the battery had given up the ghost (since it had been getting progressively weaker). Replaced the battery Tuesday morning, car started fine to go to work, then started fine to come home.

Wednesday AM the car wouldn't start again. Hmmm... I put my little jumper pack on it and the car started. Went to work, car started fine to come back home from work. When I got home, I poked my head under the hood to take a look at things and found the negative cable was loose where it attaches to the terminal. (Loose enough that I was surprised the thing had started and driven home!)

I put lock washers on the bolts that attach the positive and negative cables to their respective terminals. Despite that "fix", the car wouldn't start again. Used a paperclip to bypass the neutral safety switch, wouldn't start. Had my wife try to start the car while I was under the hood and I could clearly hear the solenoid click, but the starter wasn't doing anything. I thought maybe the solenoid wasn't fully engaging to send power to the starter motor.

Pulled the starter and took it to Autozone a couple days ago, tested fine. Reinstalled the starter this morning. Swapped out the ignition switch with a spare I have on hand, no change. Pulled the starter from my non-running Legacy, installed it on the Impreza. No change. Put a big wrench on the crank bolt and rolled the engine over by hand, just to make sure it hadn't locked up for some reason - good to go there.

I figured I had ruled out pretty much everything but the battery cables, so I replaced those with new cables I had bought for the Legacy (and had yet to install). The car started - huzzah!! I'm still not sure which one was the issue, but the car is back to life, so that's good.

- Meanwhile, today while I had the steering column cover and kick panel under the dash removed, I figured I might as well install the new multi-function switch I got at the junkyard the other day. "New" on the top (with variable wipers), old on the bottom.

Should have a chance to test them out tomorrow morning on the way to work.

[Patrick Olsen]

Got new winter tires mounted up on the Impreza. I elected to get tires for the 16" 2.5RS 5-spokes rather than using the 17" V7 STi wheels that I've used for previous winters.

Of course, this means it's not going to snow tomorrow.

[Patrick Olsen]

Originally Posted by Patrick Olsen

- Adjusted the headlight aim after work one day last week in the parking garage. I didn't do it the "right" way - taking actual measurements - just eyeballed it against the wall of the garage. Much better coverage now.

- Installed the 55/100W bulbs this afternoon. I don't get a ton of opportunity to use high beams around here, but I'm curious to see how much of a difference it makes. I think I need to upgrade the headlight wiring with relays feeding power straight from the battery before I try the 90/130W bulbs.

Not quite 4 years and about 45,000 miles later, the driver side 55/100W bulb lost the low beam. So this evening I moved the 4-year-old passenger side 55/100W bulb over to the driver side, and put a new 90/130W bulb in the passenger side. I have not upgraded the wiring in the past 4 years, so I'm not sure how well that's gonna work, but it'll do for now.

Well I was in there I also adjusted the headlight aim again. Driver side seemed a bit high - apparently not enough to have people flash me for blinding them, but it looked high relative to the passenger side. So I lowered the driver side a bit, and raised the passenger side a bit.